Imagine trying to survive in fields and meadows across North America. For many animals, a habitat like this would be impossible. Yet the monarch butterfly, a insect about 10 centimeters from wingtip to wingtip, thrives there, thanks to features that scientists call adaptations: traits that help a living thing survive in its environment.
Consider bright orange and black wings: this adaptation warn birds that it tastes bad. Equally important is a long, straw-like mouth called a proboscis, which lets it sip nectar from deep inside flowers. Without these traits, the monarch butterfly would struggle to last a single season.
As a herbivore, the monarch butterfly is an animal that eats only plants; it depends on flower nectar and milkweed leaves. Its behavior matters as much as its body: it flies up to 4,000 kilometers south to Mexico each autumn. Behaviors like this are adaptations too, even though you cannot see them in a photograph.
The next generation faces the same challenges. Young monarch butterflies, called caterpillars, depend on their surroundings and on adult care. Caterpillars eat only milkweed, which makes their bodies poisonous to birds.
Perhaps most remarkable of all: millions of monarchs spend the winter clustered together on the same trees in the mountains of Mexico. Facts like this remind us that every animal's body tells a story about the place it lives.